Liz Davidson

Friday, September 26, 2014

I wondered if I could combine the stroke of my beautiful brush [link here] with Tamar's work [link here] and soon realized there was a problem with the texture of the paper. Tamar had used cold press and for some reason [my concentration being that of a nit right now] these trials were all on hot press, which gave a very clean stoke but sharper colour. So I went back to the cold press to see what would happen; the broad stroke broke up on the textured paper but the oil pastel lines I liked, so I gessoed and sanded 1/2 the paper, and repeated the whole thing to see which I preferred. The jury is still out.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

My mother in law died 10 days ago, just 3 days short of her 102nd birthday, in her own bed and in her own home. This isn't meant to be an eulogy for Mrs. B, although she was a remarkable woman and if you would like to read about one of her finest achievements [other than my darling] here is a link; rather I'm trying to understand this time of waiting and grieving, of having time come to a standstill and ever so abruptly lurch forward. The landscape is foggy, the mist rises and clears for a while and then descends again, and it's more of a water world that we float on, learning to ride the waves. The studio calls and what happens there is unpredictable, I think I have a clear idea of where I am going but the pencil in my hand has another. There are a lot of starts but few finishes; my attention span is that of a nit.

Monday, September 8, 2014

A few weeks ago I received a small work in the mail from a friend Tamar Zinn [see her work here]. It's a work 6 x 6 in on a paper support 6 x 12 in and is the first half of a domino that I now get to work on. It's been exciting and intimidating; firstly because I admire Tamar's work which I find elegant and subtle, and secondly because 6 x 6 is seriously small and I need to work right up to the edge of her work.

I pulled out a couple of sheets of 300 lb Arches and started to draw some ideas and work out some of the technical problems of how I will do the final drawing next to hers. Bleed was a big problem, so are the size of my hands, but the biggest problem was the truthfulness of my response. I want a relationship between the works but sometimes it felt like I had lost me [often a state I have longed for] and couldn't figure out the transitions between tiles. Below are some of the early ideas.

one of the early responses to Tamar's work

another one of the early responses to Tamar's work, better but what if I flipped the shape…..

Thursday, September 4, 2014

I've spent the last month swimming in light and memory; but lovely,
languid August is over and it's time to resurface. It's been a time of retreat; of refuge, a time to dream, to plan, to
garden, and to marvel; a time of silence. And I know I want and need to come
back to this world but I have a huge resistance to this as "my desire to be well informed is currently at odds
with my desire to remain sane”. [J. found this quote and placed it on my desk, sorry that I don't know who to attribute it to.] So these photos are a prayer for the world, the blue ball we all live on and everything that inhabits it.